Council by many wives against their husbands, wherein they have suggested that without any just cause of offence given by them to their said husbands in that behalf, and notwithstanding that some of them have brought to their husbands great advancement, yet by their husbands' cruel and barbarous usage and breach of the bonds of holy wedlock and other their ungodly demeanour they have been either cast off or left by their husbands or forced to fly from them or leave their cohabitation without fit maintenance given unto them, and that the ordinary ecclesiastical courts did not afford them timely and fit means of relief for sundry reasons and specially because their necessities require above all other cases of grievance a summary hearing and speedy relief, being otherwise often in danger to perish for want; We therefore, to the end that as well ourself as our Privy Council daily employed in the highest affairs of state might be freed of this particular, as also that the just complaints and distressed estates of such wives in the cases aforesaid may be with all convenient expedition heard, determined and relieved in a certain court whereunto in that behalf they may ordinarily repair for justice, do give unto you [&c.] authority upon every such complaint made to you [§.c.]...... by any wife or in the behalf of any wife against her husband, t› send for by letters missive or to cause to be apprehended and brought before you [§.c.] . . . all such husbands...; and when any such husband shall appear or be brought before you [&c.], to proceed to the examination thereof by all the lawful ways and means before mentioned with all convenient expe

dition ...

[xxi.] And we do further give authority unto you or any five or more of you whereof [the Archbishop, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, the Bishops of London and Ely] to be one, finally to hear and determine... the said complaints and accusations made by or in the behalf of any wife against her husband in the cases aforesaid: and if you or any such three or more of you as is first above mentioned shall not be able by your godly and grave counsel and persuasions to reconcile the said husbands and wives. . ., then you or any five or more of you, whereof [as before], to set down such orders from time to time as you [&c.] shall in your discretions think meet for the competent and reasonable alimony and maintenances of every such wife for

so long time as you shall think meet, and during the time of her and her said husband's living asunder and for the defraying of the expenses of suit which every such wife hath or shall be at in the presenting of the said cause...

[xxii.] And likewise we give unto you and every such five or more of you as is aforesaid, authority to take sufficient bonds or recognizances. of every such husband so accused as aforesaid, as well for his appearance. ...as also for the performance of all your orders made in the behalf of the said wives as aforesaid, which bonds [&c.] if they shall refuse to enter into or shall refuse to perform your said orders, then we give unto you or any such five or more of you as aforesaid authority in that behalf to punish the same person so refusing or not performing the same by censures ecclesiastical or by reasonable fine and imprisonment, or by all or any of the said means according to your discretions. [XX (xxiii.)] [Power to make statutes for cathedrals, grammar schools, &c. as before, to a quorum of six, of whom the archbishop or a bishop to be one. e.]

[XXI (xxiv.)] [Power to the archbishop and bishops to administer the oath of supremacy as before: certificates of refusal to be made to the court of King's Bench.]

[XXII (xxv.)] [Sir George Paule to be registrar, with allowance fixed by the commissioners, as before.]

[XXIII (xxvi.)] [Power to appoint messengers, as before.] [XXIV (xxvii.)] [Appointment of a receiver or receivers: two books of fines to be kept, and certificates to be made into the exchequer, as before.]

[XXV (xxviii.)] Provided always . . . that no sentence definitive of any cause or matter determinable by virtue of this commission shall hereafter be given without the personal presence, hearing and full assent of five or more of you our said commissioners, whereof [the Archbishop, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord Privy Seal, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Exeter, Lichfield, Chichester, Rochester, or Gloucester, and five others] to be one, anything before in these presents contained to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding; without alteration nevertheless of any direction before in these presents

1 Added in 1613.
F f

given concerning the persons that are to be of the quorum in the cases of grievance between husband and wife only.

[XXVI (xxix.)] [Seal to be affixed, as before.]

[XXVII (xxx.)] And our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby signify and declare unto you our said commissioners and to all other our loving subjects, that it shall be lawful for any persons that shall hereafter be sentenced by you by virtue of this our commission, which shall find themselves grieved by reason of any such sentence, to become suitors unto us by way of supplication as of our grace to have a commission of review to be granted by us for the re-examination of their cause.

[XXVIII (xxxi.)] [General order to sheriffs, &c. to assist the commissioners, as before.]

[XXIX.] And to the end that this form of commission for causes ecclesiastical and none other be holden in all parts throughout the realm, We do by these presents revoke and cancel all former commissions for ecclesiastical causes in all parts whatsoever, and do declare our will and pleasure to be, that the same shall cease, determine and be utterly void, such commissions as we have granted by way of appeal in ecclesiastical causes between party and party to judges delegated only excepted. [Dated] Westminster, August 29. Pat. Roll, 9 Jac. I, Part 18.

[The commission of 1613 substitutes for § XXIX of 1611 the following:]

[xxxii.] Lastly, we . . . give authority unto you the said George, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, . . . and unto all other our commissioners named by our former commission lately granted the 29th day of August in the ninth year of our reign of England..., that they and such of them as by our said commission are authorised in that behalf may present, hear and determine all causes and matters before the date hereof commenced and at the time of the making hereof depending before the same commissioners, ... and also to proceed to the execution of their sentences as they might have done before the making of these presents: this our present commission . . . or any other matter... notwithstanding.

[Dated] Westminster, June 21.

Pat. Roll, 11 Jac. I, Part 15.

[The Commission of 1625 adds the following section :]

[xxxiii.] Provided always... that when the convocation of the clergy for the province of Canterbury shall be assembled, by reason whereof there will be always at hand for the execution of this our commission such competent number of the bishops aforesaid as there will not need the assistance of any other of our commissioners above-named, that then, during the continuance of any such assembly, . . . the said bishops only to be assembled in the said convocation shall proceed in the execution of our said commission; and that in their Convocation House only and not elsewhere; and that no others of our said commissioners above-named shall intermeddle with the execution of this our commission during the continuance of any such convocation.

[Dated] Westminster, Jan. 21. Rymer's Fadera, vol. XVII. p. 661.

II. EXTRACTS FROM ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS.

1. LAUD.

(a) Sermon III1: Psalms cxxii. 3, 4, 5.

I know there are some that think the Church is not yet far enough beside the cushion: that their seats are too easy yet, and too high too. A parity they would have, no bishop, no governor, but a parochial consistory, and that should be lay enough too. Well, first, this parity was never left to the church by Christ. He left apostles, and disciples under them: no parity. It was never in use with the church since Christ. No church ever anywhere (till this last age) without a bishop ... And one thing more I will be bold to speak out of a like duty to the Church of England and the house of David. They, whoever they be, that would overthrow sedes ecclesiae, the seats of ecclesiastical government, will not spare (if ever they get power) to have a pluck at the throne of David. And there is not a man that is for parity, all fellows in the church, but he is not for monarchy in the state.

1 Preached 6 Feb., 1625-6, at the opening of Parliament.

(b) Sermon IV1: Psalms lxxv. 2, 3.

The King's power, that is from God: the judges' and the subordinate magistrates' power, that is from the King: both are for the good of the people, that they may lead a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. All judges and courts of justice, even this great congregation, this great council now ready to sit, receive influence and power from the King, and are dispensers of his justice, as well as their own, both in the laws they make and in the laws they execute in the causes which they hear and in the sentences which they give: the King God's High Steward, and they stewards under him.

(c) Sermon V2: Psalms lxxiv. 22.

God's cause is at trial; but what cause of his is it that is particularly meant in this place? . . . First, the magistrate and his power and justice. And resist either of these, and ye resist 'the power and the ordinance of God' (Rom. xiii. 2). There is God's cause plain. And the eye of nature could see aliquid divinum, somewhat that was divine, in the governors and orderers of commonwealths...And therefore the school concludes, 'that any the least irreverence of a King-as to dispute of his judgments, and whether we ought to follow and obey himsacrilegium dicitur, is justly extended to be called sacrilege.' And since all sacrilege is a violation of something that is holy, it is evident that the office and person of the King is sacred: sacred, and therefore cannot be violated by the hand, tongue or heart of any man, that is by deed, word or thought, but 'tis God's cause, and he is violated in him. And here Kings may learn if they will, I am sure 'tis fit they should, that those men which are sacrilegious against God and his Church, are, for the very neighbourhood of the sin, the likeliest men to offer violence to the honour of princes first and their persons after.

9

Seven Sermons preached... by William Laud, &c., ed. 1651.

1 Preached before the King, 19 June, 1625.

Preached before the King, 5 July, 1626.

3Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation' (Rom. xiii, 1, 2).